In current high technology electronic equipment, individual printed circuit boards (PCB) are commonly mounted in a housing by a variety of mounting devices (see: U.S. Pat. No. 5,499,163, issued Mar. 12, 1996, inventors Sonntage et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,730,819, issued Mar. 15, 1988, inventors Hirschhorn et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,472,353, issued Dec. 5, 1995, inventors Hristake et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,459,639, issued Jul. 10, 1984, inventors Heil et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,794,676, issued Jan. 3, 1989, inventor Rose; U.S. Pat. No. 5,016,141, issued May 14, 1991, inventors Lorig et al.; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,290,122, issued Mar. 1, 1994, inventor Hulme).
There is a need that such PCB mounting devices 1) secure the PCB in place with a high degree of accuracy and with little relative motion, 2) secure the PCB during high shock and vibration conditions; 3) apply mounting forces which are tightly controlled and which are visibly inspectable without disturbing the components being held; 4) allow easy insertion of the PCB; 5) keep a constant contact with a reference plane that can be used as a PCB cooling path. The configurations disclosed in the above-referenced patents do not fulfill these needs.